INTRODUCTION. 
It is twenty-five years since I began to collect the native bulbs, plants 
and seeds of the Pacific Coast of the United States, and I need no introduc¬ 
tion to most of my customers. It has always been my endeavor to supply 
the very best that the season would allow, and I would rather at any time 
expend more than a thing brings me, than to disappoint those who have 
entrusted me with their orders. 
It is, however, only just to me that I should call the attention of my 
customers to the great difference between such a business as mine and the 
culture of the great staples such as Narcissus, Hyacinths and Tulips. 
In the latter case, if for any reason, climatic or other, a failure occurs 
with one dealer or in any section, it is exceptional if there are not sufficient 
elsewhere to make good the deficiency. 
With the so called “California bulbs” it is very different. The world’s 
annual supply of a large part of them comes from me, and if my garden 
stocks are sold out, or if the season in some section is bad, or by sickness 
or accident some of my collectors are prevented from making their collec¬ 
tions in the limited time in which the work can be done, it is only by a 
great effort that I can make good the deficiency. 
I have trained men whom I can and do despatch to points where fail¬ 
ures have occurred, and I do usuallv finally secure a thing; but to fully ap¬ 
preciate the difficulty of the work you must take into consideration the 
immensity of the field in which I operate. 
It is about six hundred miles from Ukiah to Los Angeles, three hundred 
and fifty to Nevada, six hundred to Southern Oregon, a thousand to either 
Eastern Oregon or the Puget Sound region; and from each of those locali¬ 
ties some annual collected supplies must come. I have a well trained corps 
of local collectors, and failures are exceptional, but with so many varieties 
some will occur. The time of my special trained collectors is mostly re¬ 
quired to get those things which grow where I have no local collectors, 
and it may happen that to make good some failure of a local man, would 
endanger equally important collections that they are engaged in. Very 
often the collector must penetrate country where there are no railroads, 
and not so seldom where there are no roads of any sort. 
When all this is considered, 1 feel that it is much to my credit that in 
1903, which was an unfavorable year, I secured 90 per cent of all bulbs 
ordered and 96 per cent of standard varieties. Is the record in staple bulbs 
much better? 
